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Quantum Gas Microscopy with Spin, Atom-Number, and Multilayer Readout

April 15, 2015

Fig 1: Preparation of a bilayer system. [Reprinted by permission from APS*]

Atom- and site-resolved experiments with ultracold atoms in optical lattices provide a powerful platform for the simulation of strongly correlated materials. In Rapid Communication in Physical review A*, Prof. Markus Greiner and members of his group present a toolbox for the preparation, control, and site-resolved detection of a tunnel-coupled bilayer degenerate quantum gas. Using a collisional blockade, the authors engineered occupation-dependent interplane transport which enabled them to circumvent light-assisted pair loss during imaging and count n=0 to n=3 atoms per site. They obtained the first number- and site-resolved images of the Mott insulator "wedding cake" structure and observed the emergence of antiferromagnetic ordering across a magnetic quantum phase transition. They were able to employ the bilayer system for spin-resolved readout of a mixture of two hyperfine states. This work opens the door to direct detection of entanglement and Kosterlitz-Thouless-type phase dynamics, as well as studies of coupled planar quantum materials.